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March 10th is National Day of Appreciation for Abortion Providers, and man oh man could they use some love. Obama’s victory may protect Roe v Wade in the Supreme Court, but state legislatures are doing their best to pile on the obstacles and restrictions: mandatory ultrasounds are the latest fad, with bills being considered in eleven states ( because apparently women are so stupid they might not realize they’re having an abortion because they’re pregnant). And then, as Michael Winerip reported in an unusually thorough piece in Sunday’s New York Times (in the Style section, sigh, along with the rest of the girlynews), the women’s health activists who form the backbone of many clinic staffs are retiring and proving hard to replace in the more conservative and rural regions, like upstate New York, the South and Midwest. Doctors, nurses and technicians are reluctant to work in clinics in anti-choice places where they will be picketed, socially ostracized and forced to protect themselves daily against possible violence. Low pay is another factor: anti-choicers love to talk about abortion as a business, but adjusted for inflation, the price of a first trimester abortion is about what it was thirty years ago, although security-related costs have skyrocketed — one reason why clinic staffers make about half what they would in another specialty.

Will the next generation step up to the plate? Sally Burgess, head of the National Abortion Federation, thinks that growing up with legal abortion, too many lack “the fire in the belly.” Then too, med school policies mean only a small proportion of medical students are even learning how to perform this relatively simple procedure.

You can show your support for the selfless people who make more than words on a page by making a donation to the Women’s Reproductive Rights Assistance Project (WRRAP) , an all-volunteer group which helps low-income girls and women around the country pay for their abortion care. As the economy sinks and unemployment rises, more and more women will find themselves both needing to terminate a pregnancy and unable to come up with the cost. Help WRAPP be there for clinics and for women.

Donations of any size are more than welcome (and yes, the rather odd name on the Paypal account is correct — I checked), but if you send me your receipt for $50 or more, I will mail you a signed copy of Learning to Drive: and Other Life Stories, my collection of personal essays.